High Salvington windmill, Sussex

High Salvington windmill is located on a hill outside Worthing, West Sussex. The hill is west of the Findon Valley and the hill on the other side of the valley is where Cissbury Ring is located.

The windmill is a post mill, built around 1756. It ceased working in 1897. After Worthing council bought it to save it as an example of a Sussex post mill, in 1976 a restoration trust began to restore it to full working order. Now all the machinery has been reinstalled and stone-ground flour is milled regularly. 

The black mill is quite an impressive site. Currently 2 of the sails are being restored.

It is the first post mill I have visited, as all the others around the London area have been tower aka smock mills.  The day I went there was also a craft fair so the place was quite busy.

These photos show the entrance with the stairs. The long white beam is used for turning the mill -

The ground floor section is called the roundhouse. We then went up the stairs to the main workings of the mill. The huge oak post -

In a post mill, the whole body of the mill turns around the central post. This post is supported by four quarter bars in the roundhouse.

The 3 m diameter brake wheel with 136 teeth -

This is a replica of the Glynde Wind Pump. lt is a restored, small hollow post-mill wind pump originally rescued from Glynde in 1988. It is modeled after a design used to pump water from trenches in northern France during the First World War. In Sussex it was probably used to irrigate fields.

The mill is open for tours on 2 Sundays a month from April to September.

See the website of High Salvington windmill.

See more on Wikipedia post mills and on the Sussex mills group. 

Partial solar eclipse Aug 2026

On the evening of 12 August 2026 there was a partial solar eclipse, amounting to about 95% in the UK. Full coverage was seen in Spain and Iceland. 

In this eclipse the sun was covered by the moon. It was the fullest solar eclipse visible from the UK and Ireland since 1999 (which I missed).

I watched it from Worthing pier in West Sussex, on the south coast of England. Luckily I still had some solar eclipse glasses from an eclipse on 29 March 2025. This was a partial solar eclipse and I was on a cruise ship, sailing north from the Azores to UK. It had been too cloudy to see the sun.

In Worthing, the eclipse began at about 6.18pm and reached its maximum at 7.14pm, lasting around one hour and 49 minutes in total. There had been so much build up in the media, including how it would get dark and go quiet and the birds stop singing and go to bed. In reality it didn't get very dark as the coverage was not total. But it did get noticeably cooler, especially was England was in its 5th heatwave of the summer.

I took the photos on my phone, so they are not good, but are better than nothing!

Some penguin poses

 I still have very fond memories of my day spent in the Falklands in 2023, when I went to see the penguins. See my blog post.

Since then, whilst looking at the photos, I had a silly moment giving captions to some of the penguins -

hen pecked husband and nagging wife

Gentoo on a mission

worn out

synchronized surfing

the 4 tenors rehearse

mothers meeting

waiting for the show to start

neck exercises

Total lunar eclipse - blood moon - 2025 Sept

 On the evening of 7 Sept 2025 there was a total lunar eclipse, UK time. It was the longest total lunar eclipse since 2022. Although it was visible in the UK, the moon didn't rise until after 7.30 pm by which time the maximum eclipse had passed. Also it was cloudy and the moon wasn't visible until 8.30 pm.

A lunar eclipse is known as a blood moon, although didn't appear red by the time I saw it. The sun, earth and the moon align in a straight line, with sunlight casting a reddish-brown hue on the moon.

Animals in Namibia

 I am lazy to do a proper blog on the animals I saw in Namibia, so here are some random photos, in no particular order.

Looking at prey but not hungry, already got a full belly